Categories: Politics

Vox Sentences: American kids are having test troubles

Javier Zarracina/Vox

National reading scores decline; Congress recognizes the Armenian genocide.

Vox Sentences is your daily digest for what’s happening in the world. Sign up for the Vox Sentences newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday, or view the Vox Sentences archive for past editions.

US students’ reading scores slip

Reading scores of eighth graders nationwide fell in over half of all states, with a slight decline overall. [New York Times / Erica L. Green and Dana Goldstein]
The National Assessment of Educational Progress exam marked declines in reading ability among all groups, but the biggest drop came from students with the lowest reading proficiency. [Chalkbeat / Kalyn Belsha]
Declining NAEP scores also occurred in 2013 and 2015, leading policymakers to debate the cause of shrinking proficiency numbers. [The Hechinger Report / Jill Barshay]
Coinciding with the release of the 2019 NAEP scores, new ACT score results reveal a 15-year low in the share of high school students meeting college-readiness math and reading benchmarks. [Inside Higher Ed / Elin Johnson]
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos expressed her concern that these scores indicate “two out of three of our nation’s children aren’t proficient readers.” [Politico / Nicole Gaudiano]
But some education experts and researchers argue that NAEP scores shouldn’t be used to evaluate the effectiveness of specific policies. [Education Week / Stephen Sawchuk]
Sociologist Adia Harvey Wingfield argues that the disinvestment in public schools is causing their decline, and leading to many forms of inequality. [Vox / Adia Harvey Wingfield]

Recognizing genocide, 100 years later

On Tuesday, the House voted to impose sanctions against Turkey in the wake of Turkey’s decision to launch an invasion into northern Syria and establish a buffer zone against Kurds in that area. [Axios]
Shortly afterwards, they also passed a measure that officially recognized the Armenian genocide in a compounded rebuke of Turkey. [CNN International / Jedd Rosche]
Recognition of the 1915-1923 murder of 1.5 million Armenians by the predecessors of people in Turkey, the Ottomans, is a big step for the Armenian community. [Los Angeles Magazine / Gwynedd Stuart]
Turkey has criticized the American move to recognize the violence against the Armenians and warns that it endangers US-Turkey relations “at an extremely fragile time.” [Al Jazeera]

Miscellaneous

Not those Astros — the International Space Station celebrates Game 7 of the World Series with a friendly game. [Space.com / Mike Wall]
ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi might be dead, but his organization is still hanging on. [Foreign Policy / H.A. Hellyer]
Rising seas could claim the land of three times more people by 2050 than previously thought. [New York Times / Denise Lu and Christopher Flavelle]
Mass protest in Chile began with a hike in transit prices. [Vox / Mark Johanson]
Soon, the sale of foie gras in New York City could result in a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail. [The Guardian]